NZ Cricket to stand firm on proposals

New Zealand Cricket says it will not be bullied into accepting any unreasonable inroads into its income and playing schedule by the sport's big three nations.

India, England and Australia have put forward a draft proposal that recommends handing more control of the sport to them, seeks a change in revenue-sharing and asks that the future tours programme be dropped.

Under the future tours programme all full member nations of the International Cricket Council (ICC) must play each other at least once at home and away between 2011 and 2020.

The proposal will be put to the ICC Executive Board at its quarterly two-day meeting in Dubai starting on Tuesday and would need votes from seven of the 10 member countries to be passed.

New Zealand Cricket's board discussed the proposal on Wednesday and says it will not be moved on certain aspects of the game.

New Zealand's ICC representative, Martin Snedden, says the board wants the programme to be kept at least until its expiry date.

"There's a lot of water to go under the bridge yet before we get to a point of having to make a final decision as to what we support and what we don't.

"What is fundamental to it all is the quality of the playing programme for our team and international cricket and the quality of the revenue-sharing model that goes with that."

International players' union opposes move

The Federation of International Cricketers' Associations (FICA) has urged test-playing nations to reject the controversial proposals.

In a statement, FICA executive chairman Paul Marsh said the future of the game depended on the other seven ICC Board members rejecting the proposal at next week's board meeting.

He said cricket chiefs have a duty to put ICC's interest ahead of those of the individual boards and questioned whether it was met in this case.

"It is not in the best interests of the global game and we have real fears that it will only serve to strengthen the 'big three' countries whilst the rest are left to wither on the vine."